Sweeting’s Game Preparation Goes Beyond the Playbook

By Steve Irvine

September 18 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

Game preparation isn’t done solely in meeting rooms, video rooms and the practice field, at least not for UAB cornerback Darrell Sweeting. He also mixes in a healthy dose of homework.

You see, Sweeting is a talker on the football field. This is where the homework shows up.

“I prep every week,” said Sweeting, a 6-foot, 185-pound redshirt junior. “I ain't gonna lie, I'm looking at their Instagrams and who they date. I'm looking at all that. I’m looking at who they named (after), their first name, their mom’s name. I'm trying to get under their skin, so when I get on the field, I'm just saying all different types of things. Not disrespectful but something where they’re saying ‘What, how you know that?’”

The genesis of this approach includes the position that he plays. Be honest, have you ever known a quiet cornerback? But the roots of Sweeting’s journey into trash talking began long before he became a college football cornerback. It came on the youth football fields of West Palm Beach, Fla., where trash talking is part of the game.

“If you ain't got a little dawg in you, you can't play down there, I ain't gonna lie to you,” said Sweeting, who was 6 years old when he first joined a team. “When I first started playing football, they installed trash talking into me. I’ll give you a quick story. When I was young, I used to be scared to run into people hard, you know what I'm saying? So my coaches would talk trash (to) make me mad. When they talked trash, I used to go running into people fast and hard. I got rid of that fear fast.”

The fear was gone but the need for trash talking remained. But that’s just part of his process.

“You got to back it up,” Sweeting said. “The confidence comes from the work you put in, obviously, in practice, in off-season training, in the weight room and all the running we do as a team. That's where the confidence first builds and comes from. I think the trash talking is just to get you going. It's like a mental game for myself as well, to go in there like, "OK, cool, if I'm gonna talk trash, I gotta go in there and do my job.’"

Sweeting’s job these days comes on the defensive side of the ball. In high school, at The Benjamin School in West Palm Beach, he was a standout in all three phases. As a junior, he had 70 catches for 1,261 yards with 17 receiving touchdowns. He also had 48 tackles, five interceptions, including one he returned for a touchdown, and a kickoff return for a score.

Sweeting played in eight games over his first two college seasons at Temple. Last season, he played in 12 games at Marshall and contributed 37 tackles, one tackle for loss, one sack and an interception. He came to UAB in January and immediately made a good impression. Sweeting latched on to one of the first team cornerback spots in spring practice and never let go.

“I think you just start with character, just showing the type of person you are,” Sweeting said. “Then you gotta go out there and play. I think over the course of the spring I did really well. My first day I came out with two picks. I put my name out there real fast in front of the team. I think I ended the spring with like eight or nine picks, so I was able to earn respect from the team. Coming into fall camp, I was able to just keep building off that. Now I'm in season, so I gotta just build off that.”

The next step comes on Saturday against Louisiana, which features standout dual threat quarterback Lunch Winfield. With Winfield’s ability to beat a defense with his legs and arm it’s a challenging game for the entire UAB defense. Sweeting does have the advantage of previous experience against Winfield, even though that didn’t go so well. Winfield came off the bench last season at home against Marshall and led the Ragin’ Cajuns to a 54-51 win in overtime. Winfield accounted for 254 yards and five touchdowns in about two quarters of action and scored the game-winner on a 10-yard run.

“He was a explosive guy,” Sweeting said when asked what he remembers from that game. “He could throw the ball, he’s got a strong arm. He can run the ball like crazy. If you let him have too much space, he'll run it. We got to just be on top of it, keep him contained in the pocket and then take away his throws.”

Getting a little extra information from social media might also be helpful.